Bake and cool sweet potatoes (bake at 450°F for ~60 minutes). Once cool, peel and add cooked sweet potato to your stand mixer. Using paddle attachment blend in egg, salt, almond flour, arrowroot powder, coconut flour, and tapioca starch. The dough will be sticky, do not try to roll it out into strands like regular gnocchi! Use a 1 tablespoon size disher to scoop evenly sized pieces of dough. I didn’t try running them down the backside of a fork to mimic the classic gnocchi look, the dough seemed too tacky for the task. Cook the dough in boiling salted water, once they float, they are done!

Yes I absolutely made sweet potato gnocchi on June 10, 2012 and posted it on this site. I also cheated and used quinoa flour because this is NOT an easy dish to create (and I just couldn’t figure out a better way…until now)! Have no fear I recreated the recipe tonight without quinoa flour 🙂 I haven’t tried any Cappello’s pasta yet, but I’m guessing it would taste just like this (except with potato instead of sweet potato). So why make paleo pasta? I found out something strange, which doesn’t seem to be so strange anymore, after my first (strict) introduction to paleo. Gluten makes me sneeze! Me, the girl who’s had the world’s worst allergies since she was 12. Me the girl who can take every maximum strength allergy medication on the market and still be miserable. Me the girl who can’t have desensitization shots because I react to them. Me who is 1/2 Italian and LOVES pasta and bread. Yup, the reason I was a sneezy, sniffly, puffy, itchy mess for over half of my life was gluten. No, I’m no celiac. No, gluten doesn’t cause any GI or neuronal issues. Just makes me sneeze. Yup. Probably an IgA mediated reaction of some sort (sorry…scientist). Now one of my best friends has gone paleo (and is rocking her first month of CrossFit with PRs) and she called me last week to inform me that I’m on to something with this whole gluten thing. When she stays away from gluten her allergies and asthma do not bother her! She too can breathe! Look at that, I’m not the only one! So if seasonal or pet allergies plague you, humor me, give up gluten for a month and see how you feel. Yes pasta is delicious (but you can make these! Or buy brown rice, corn, or quinoa pastas) and bread is delicious, but breathing freely is SO MUCH BETTER! Trust me, I waited too many years to finally discover this. Now, the recipe.

Roll into ropes and cut

Roll down the back of a fork to form ridges

Paleo sweet potato gnocchi with chicken in creamy (paleo) sage sauce

Yield: 12 dozen

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pound sweet potato

1/2 tsp. xanthan gum

1 large egg

3 cups almond flour

1 1/4 cups potato starch

1 cup arrowroot powder

Method:

Preheat oven to 400°F. Bake sweet potato at 400°F until fork tender, approximately 60 minutes. Scoop from skin, rice through a potato ricer (or mash if you don’t have a ricer), and cool sweet potato. Mix together almond flour, potato starch, and arrowroot powder. Sprinkle cooled sweet potato with xanthan gum then mix with almond flour, potato starch, arrowroot powder mixture about 1 cup at a time. To omit the need for dusting my dough rolling surface I wrapped a large cutting board in wax paper and rolled my dough out on that. Roll dough into approximately 3/4 inch thick ropes. Cut the ropes into 1 inch pieces and roll each piece down the back side of a fork to form ridges. Drop gnocchi into boiling salted water, they will float when done, approximately 2 minutes. Mix with desired sauce and enjoy!

Picture shown is paleo sweet potato gnocchi with chicken in creamy sage sauce. The recipe for the paleo chicken and cream sauce can be found on p. 59 of my cookbook, Paleo Made Easy, available at the right of this page.

P.S. If you don’t want to cook 12 dozen gnocchi, make a single layer or extra uncooked gnocchi on a baking sheet lined with wax paper and place in the freezer. Once frozen, transfer gnocchi to a zip top bag and store in the freezer for a later date. No need to thaw, simply drop the frozen gnocchi in boiling water. When they float to the surface they are done cooking.